From the Guardian (UK) news website:
Individual cigarettes in Canada will now carry warnings such as “poison in every puff” and “cigarettes cause impotence” in what the government says is an effort to make it “virtually impossible to avoid health warnings altogether”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/01/canada-cigarette-health-wa...
COMMENT (NPW): I think this is an important and welcome development. I know smokers personally who say that they ignore pictorial warnings on cigarette packets and that such warnings have no impact on them. Written warnings on every cigarette may be less hard to ignore, although some will be able to do so. The challenge is to know what forms of words will be most effective, and for what objective (eg to inform or to persuade to quit). For me, the most important objective is to inform and raise understanding about the myriad harms of smoking, so that everyone knows and truly understands the health impacts (and other impacts that are important to many people, such as environmental impacts).
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil AT hifa.org
